A couple of weeks ago we were on holiday on Vancouver Island. I wrote, read and sipped tea. And shopped just a little bit. 🙂

I bought two pens, a pen case and a journal. Let’s take a look at the journal first.

This is the Spring Finale Journal by Andy Everson. Andy is a First Nation’s Artist and you can learn more about him and his breathtaking art on his webpage. I actually found this journal on my last day, at the airport gift shop. Couldn’t pass it up at $15. Such beautiful artwork and the journal is well made too.

It’s a spiral journal but the spirals are protected by the binding. The dragonfly motif is repeated on the inside covers.

Lined pages. Paper is a medium weight and very creamy feeling.

Details about the artist on the inside back cover. I love his work and these journals are an affordable way of having some of his art to look at. I mean I could frame the cover it’s so beautiful. Here’s an inspiring quote from the description of this journal on Andy’s webpage:

‘Spring’s Finale’ represents a brief moment in time in which the dragonfly has stopped from its regular activity to rest on a cattail in a swamp. It also represents the crescendo of beauty that is the end of spring. Colours vivid with life have lived on rain and are now rejoicing in the ever-warming sun. ‘Spring’s Finale’ is but a moment in time that encourages you to reflect on the past and prepare for the future.

To purchase this and other Andy Everson journals, check out this link.

Next up, a wooden fountain pen.

I don’t have a lot of information about this pen. We went to Qualicum Stationers in Qualicum Beach. They had a huge art supply section and framing section, and a small stationery supply section. In their display cabinet at the cash they had some of these wooden fountain pens for $25 each. I was told they are made by a woodworker in Victoria. The barrel and cap are wood, with gold coloured accents.

The section is plastic I think, and the medium nib is gold coloured steel.

The nib had some false starts and skipped when I started to write, which you can see in the writing sample above a little bit. But it disappeared the longer I wrote. It was like it needed to warm up. It came with a standard international size cartridge but I wanted to see what De Atramentis William Shakespeare would look like in it and I really like it. It matches the barrel beautifully, which I like to do. Maybe with more use the nib will even itself out.

I also picked up this Zebra V-301 Fountain Pen, which I’ve never seen before. The package came with two refill cartridges as well. The pen does not take standard international cartridges but I can always fill them with a needle when they run out.

Very smooth writer, no hesitations or blobs. No leaks. Very comfortable in the hand. One thing I REALLY like is that it snaps to cap but also snaps to post! As a post-er myself I love a secure post on a fountain pen. 🙂

And lastly this blue pen case.

I spied the pen case right away in the display case, as I’ve been looking at them online for a long time. Real leather ones start at around $50 which is reasonable when you consider the amount of work that goes into making one. I couldn’t believe it when the salesperson said the price was $14.95. We actually went to this stationery store twice because on our first visit I bought one pen case. I thought about it overnight and took my husband’s advice and went back the next day to buy two more cases. And the interesting thing is, they came from the same fellow who made the fountain pens; his wife is a leather crafter. How cool is that?

I can fit both pens in comfortably; there is a leather strip down the middle that protects one pen from the other. Unbelievable deal. And such a great colour.

So that’s it for my holiday treasures and the memories they bring back. Can’t wait to use them all!

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